In this lesson you will be learning about fills that last for a whole bar and are built from eighth notes. The patterns used for these fills will be similar to some of our Single Stroke Roll Orchestrations so it may be worth covering this lesson first.
A fill is a break in a groove pattern that is mostly used for either decoration or as a musical queue for when something is going to change. In terms of playing, a fill can be anything. Rolls around the kit, variations in groove, stops and rhythmic patterns are all very common. In this lesson you will be using eighth note rolls around the kit, further ideas are shown in our fill concepts lessons.
One of the most important things to remember when learning fills is that you need to be able to change from a groove into the fill without any breaks in timing, you will be reminded of this in most coming fill lessons.
In the examples shown below you will be given a fill followed by the fill used in a four bar pattern. The structure for this pattern will always be 'A A A B' where 'A' is a groove and 'B' is the fill given in the example. Feel free to experiment with different grooves but make sure you practice repeating the four bar phrase over. This will help you work on transitioning from fill to groove as well as from groove to fill. Unless shown otherwise, use a single stroke sticking for all fills.
Example 1
The first fill is very straight forward, it's just eighth notes played on the snare. If the right hand of the groove is playing quavers then the snares of this fill will be the same speed as those.
Fill
Phrase
Example 2
Here you will be playing four eighth notes across two different drums.
Fill
Phrase
Example 3
This is a similar pattern moved between two different drums. In the phrase example crotchets have been used for the right hand of the groove, be careful of your timing here.
Fill
Phrase
Example 4
This time you are playing groups of two eighth notes spread across four different drums.
Fill
Phrase
Example 5
Finally, a fill that is similar to the Triangle Pattern orchestration.
Fill
Phrase
TASK:
- Using the 2 minute rule, get all fills up to a tempo of at least 135bpm.
- Get all four bar phrases up to a tempo of at least 135bpm.REMEMBER to practice repeating the phrases and eliminate any gaps in timing. A metronome is very useful for this.
- Use different grooves in each phrased example.
- Create your own full bar eighth note fills then apply them to a phrased example.
I recommend trying our Full Bar Sixteenth Note Fills, Half Bar Eighth Note Fills, A B Exercises Using Sixteenth Note Fills or Very Short Fills next.